Archives for December 2014

“I love goats, something I did not do for the great bulk of my years on this planet. I love their insouciance, their curiosity, their authority issues, their rapt fascination with almost everything. Living with all of these other animals who revere me for taking care of them, it’s refreshing to have goats who regularly nip the hand that feeds them.”

In this podcast episode I sit down with Matt and Jie, newlyweds and Bay Area residents who spent time living and working as expats in Shanghai, China from 2012 through the summer of 2013. Jie, who was born in China but grew up in Seattle, arrived in China several months before Matt and discusses her experience working for a Chinese company and trying to navigate her way through such a different workplace culture. Matt, who was backpacking across the world at the time, arrived in Shanghai later on and he takes us through his job search as an American who did not know how to speak Chinese. We also touch on many other aspects of living as expats abroad (and China specifically) – searching for housing, making friends, acclimating to local food and fashion trends, working around the censorship of major US websites and dealing with the intense pollution. Lots of great stuff, thanks for tuning in everybody!

Today on the podcast I sit down with my younger sister Jen (AKA Unicorn, Power Betch, etc.). The more time passes, the more this kid continues to impress me. When I look at where she was four or five years ago – deep in the throes of her struggle with depression – and where she is today, it’s hard not to appreciate how far she has come. She still has many of the same daily struggles that she has had her entire life, but through hard work, introspection and dedicating both her studies and work to helping others, she has taken major strides to create a more purposeful and fulfilling life.

Mental illness is something that is rarely talked about and I think it is still largely misunderstood in our society. There is little done to educate children and families about these things, so people struggling with any type of mental illness often do not have the support system they need from their communities. In addition, the resources offered by schools in this area might be slim to none, so there might not be anywhere to turn to receive the necessary help and guidance.

Having conversations like this is one of the ways I hope that we can begin to break down the barriers surrounding mental illness and hopefully begin to create a stronger community for the people who really need it. If you have any personal experience with mental illness, either yourself or through a close friend or family member, it would be great to hear from you in the comments below.

While hanging out with a good friend one night, I disclosed to him that I had started meditating. He saw this as a golden opportunity to kick off an intricate, elaborate, well-executed series of events that added up to an epic prank. The prank started in January 2014 and finally came to an end five months later in June. He now considers this prank to be his personal masterpiece, a lifetime of experience culminating in this work of art. At times during that five month span I was confused, paranoid and on the verge of contacting the authorities. In this episode we recount the events that transpired during that period.

And on a related note, any episode that we post on a Friday (such as this one) will be of a different theme than the other episodes in the podcast. The goal of the Friday episodes is just to have fun and goof off.

This speech was not delivered at a great university in front of a packed stadium. In fact, the number of people in attendance for my big speech was zero. Since plebeians like myself are not in high demand these days, nobody invited me to give a commencement speech this year, but I plowed forward and delivered it anyways. 30 years of so-called wisdom wrapped up into a 20-minute sound bite.